The Odyssey: Book 3

As the sun sprang up, leaving the brilliant waters in its wake,
climbing the bronze sky to shower light on immortal gods
and mortal men across the plowlands ripe with grain—
the ship pulled into Pylos, Neleus' storied citadel...

They sat in nine divisions, each five hundred strong,
each division offering up nine bulls, and while the people
tasted the innards, burned the thighbones for the god,
the craft and crew came heading straight to shore.

Striking sail, furling it in the balanced ship,
they moored her well and men swung down on land.

With that
Pisistratus placed, in her hand the cup of mellow wine
and Pallas rejoiced at the prince's sense of tact
in giving the golden winecup first to her.

Ah dear boy, since you call back such memories,
such living hell we endured in distant Troy—
we headstrong fighting forces of Achaea—

And there my own dear son, both strong and staunch,
Antilochus—lightning on his feet and every inch a fighter!

But so many other things we suffered, past that count—
what mortal in this wide world could tell it all?
Not if you sat and probed his memory, five, six years,
delving for all the pains our brave Achaeans bore there.

Your way with words—it's just like his—I'd swear
no youngster could ever speak like you, so apt, so telling.

But half the men held back, camped on the beach,
waiting it out for Agamemnon's next commands
while our contingent embarked—
we pushed off and sailed at a fast clip
as a god smoothed out the huge troughing swells.

Odysseus sailed them back, the flexible, wily king,
veering over to Agamemnon now to shore his fortunes up.

Massing the ships that came in my flotilla,
I sped away as the god's mischief kept on brewing
dawning on me now.

A shrilling wind came up, stiff, driving us on
and on we raced, over the sea-lanes rife with fish
and we made Geraestus Point in the dead of night.

Now that you mention it, dear boy, I do recall
a mob of suitors, they say, besets your mother
there in your own house, against your will,
and plots your ruin.

And many thighbones he burned on the gods' holy altars,
many gifts he hung on the temple walls—gold, brocades—
in thanks for a conquest past his maddest hopes.

But as we rounded holy Sounion, Athens' headland,
lord Apollo attacked Atrides' helmsman, aye,
with his gentle shafts he shot the man to death—
an iron grip on the tiller, the craft scudding fast—
Phrontis, Onetor's son, who excelled all men alive
at steering ships when gales bore down in fury.

But as for the other five with pitch-black prows,
the wind and current swept them on toward Egypt.

Vengeance done, he held a feast for the Argives
to bury his hated mother, craven Aegisthus too,
the very day Menelaus arrived, lord of the warcry
freighted with all the wealth his ships could carry.

Zeus forbid—and the other deathless gods as well—
that you resort to your ship and put my house behind
like a rank pauper's without a stitch of clothing,
no piles of rugs, no blankets in his place
for host and guests to slumber soft in comfort.

But the noble chariot-driver let Telemachus,
King Odysseus' son, sleep at the palace now,
on a corded bed inside the echoing colonnade...

Tell the maids
inside the hall to prepare a sumptuous feast—
bring seats and firewood, bring pure water too.

The old horseman passed the gold to the smith,
and twining the foil, he sheathed the heifer's horns
so the goddess' eyes might dazzle, delighted with the gift.

Thrasymedes, staunch in combat, stood ready,
whetted ax in his grasp to cut the heifer down,
and Perseus held the basin for the blood.

Pouring the lustral water, scattering barley-meal,
he lifted up his ardent prayers to Pallas Athena,
launching the sacrifice, flinging onto the fire
the first tufts of hair from the victim's head.

Prayers said, the scattering barley strewn,
suddenly Nestor's son impetuous Thrasymedes
strode up close and struck—the ax chopped
the neck tendons through—

Dark blood gushed forth, life ebbed from her limbs—